Brussels, 09/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - The compilation of national lists of third countries which are non-cooperative in taxation transparency matters, which was published by the European Commission on 17 June, continues to make waves. Despite the letter sent last week by the Commission to the OECD to pour oil on troubled waters (see EUROPE 11347), the Paris-based organisation has not dropped the matter.
On the evening of Thursday 9 July, the OECD published its own analysis of the tax transparency measures taken by the countries on this list (with the exception of the Maldives and the Virgin Islands, which are not members of the Global Forum), in order to show the “very significant progress these legal systems have made to implement international standards”. This analysis shows that all of the countries on the list, with the exception of the Cook Islands, Liberia, Nauru, Panama and Vanuatu, have pledged to apply the global OECD standard on the automatic exchange of tax information. Most of these states are also already judged to be partially or largely 'compliant' with the standards for the exchange of tax information on request.
“We are in discussion with the EU Commission and are seeking the best way to resolve this issue so that all progress made by Global Forum members is properly recognised and not undermined by inappropriate categorisations”, Monica Bhatia and Pascal Saint-Amans write.
The timing of the publication of this analysis is no coincidence. The Good Governance Platform will meet this Friday to discuss this list and the next steps. The publication of the OECD analysis “might facilitate the discussion and the resolution of the difficulties accruing from the list published by the Commission”, Bhatia and Saint-Amans add. The OECD notes that a number of member states have called for the approach to be revised and, in the meantime, for the list to be updated to reflect the true state of the national lists.
“We understand that a number of member states' lists have recently been updated to take account of developments in transparency”, the OECD goes on to state. It stresses that it understands that a number of member states have called for an immediate change to the title of the list, which “itself gives a highly misleading impression”. The OECD stresses that it is prepared to respond to members of government, the press or investors to clarify the individual situation of the countries on the list.
The analysis published by the OECD is, however, based solely on questions of tax transparency, also including a reference to whether or not the country is a party to the multilateral convention on the exchange of fiscal information or clarifying the number of bilateral relations in such matters of each country on the list. In his letter to the OECD, Taxation Commissioner Pierre Moscovici stressed that “certain member states of the EU also took account of other criteria, such as harmful tax regimes” when putting together their lists. The consolidated list, he explained, represented the situation in the month of December 2014 and will be updated by the end of the year. (Elodie Lamer)